Canada's 'Picasso of the North' dead at 75
OTTAWA (AFP) — Aboriginal painter Norval Morrisseau, 75, described by friends and admirers as "the Picasso of the North" and "the most important painter Canada has ever produced," died Tuesday.
He passed away in hospital of complications from Parkinson's disease, according to a statement by the Assembly of First Nations, which represents aboriginal people of Canada.
"Mr. Morrisseau was unquestionably one of the greatest artists of his generation," Canada's government said in a statement.
"He was a courageous aboriginal painter who, through perseverance and faith in his gift, was able to break through enormous cultural and racial barriers to bring his art not just to Canada, but to the world."
And his passing "is a great loss to the aboriginal community, the arts and cultural community and all Canadians," said the government.
The creator of the Woodland Indian art movement, Morrisseau was the first to depict Ojibwa legends and history for non-natives.
Since then, three generations of native artists have followed in his footsteps, producing variations of his style of heavy black outlines that enclose colorful, flat shapes.
A self-taught artist who lived most of his life in northern Ontario, he paid little attention in his art to figurative modeling -- "no delving into the problems of perspective or pictorial depth," said a Globe and Mail art critic in 1981.
"Using his small repertoire of techniques, he presents stylized versions of what he knows: the bears, loons, fish and turtles that live in the forests and ponds, and the people in the town around him," said critic John Bentley Mays.
"But these are not ordinary forests, ponds and people. Morrisseau's art transports us into a shadowy archetypal realm where ordinary things are wonderful.
"In his visionary lakes swim mighty fish, armed with bolts of spiritual lightening. A bear spirit -- a dragon-like chimera spangled with bright eyes and brilliant colors -- suddenly stands in your path."
His story is that of a true primitive who emerged from the Canadian wilderness to awe the sophisticates in the major art centers of the world, the daily said Wednesday.
Indeed, Morrisseau remains the only native artist ever to have had a solo exhibition in the National Gallery of Canada in its 127 year history, in 2006.
Also, he is the only Canadian painter ever invited to exhibit at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, in 1989.
According to reports, he once gave Spanish artist Pablo Picasso a drawing with the words written on the back: "From one great artist to another."
Picasso is said to have remarked: "Well, you never know, do you?"
Born on the Ojibwa Sand Point Reserve on Lake Nipigon, near Thunder Bay, Ontario, he is survived by as many as 14 children, six of them from his 1957 marriage to Harriet Kakegamic.
